The Million's Poet

The Million's Poet is an X-factor style TV show aired in the United Arab Emitates. It is shown on Emirati TV. The winner is awarded a 5 million dirham prize. The show is one of the most popular in the Middle East. It draws masters of Bedouin dialect poetry, called Nabati. Extraodinary. I wonder how a similar show would fare on western TV?

Hissa Hilal is Saudi housewife and mother of four who attracted attention with her poetry denouncing Islamic extremism. She wore traditional head to toe black cloak and veil. She defied death threats to reach the final of the show. Her final poem concerned the topic of freedom of speech. Apparently, in the second part of of the program, all poets have to improvise a six verse poem to match one by the previous year's winner. They must use the same weight, rhyme and subject without using any of the previous one's metaphors.

The panel, which accounts for 60% of the votes, placed her first, but after the remaining 40% of the votes from the public came in, she was placed third, with a prize equivalent to £536,000. Mrs Hilal admitted she was scared by the death threats, but vowed to use poetry to fight extremism. The winner, from Kuwait, received the 5m dirham (£900,000). Extraordinary. I wonder if we would all try harder with our poetry if this sort of show was on every Saturday night? I wonder, also, whether any of this poetry is available in translation? Please let me know if anyone has any feedback.